The story begins with this claim: “Iceland is on the verge of eliminating Down syndrome.”

It sounds amazing. Have scientists cured this genetic abnormality?

Geneticist Kari Stefansson is on camera, declaring: “We have basically eradicated, almost, Down syndrome, from our society – that there is hardly ever a child with Down syndrome born in Iceland anymore.”

The reason is quickly explained: There are hardly any children with Down syndrome left because they are being killed off.

Prenatal screening tests, while not perfect, can usually indicate if a pregnant woman’s baby has Down syndrome. According to the news report, in Iceland, 100 percent of the women who discover this about their baby, abort the child.

This is not curing a problem – it is eliminating the child with the problem.

Chilling.

This is like a school getting rid of under-performing students to improve the school’s overall test scores. (Fans of the 1990 Christian Slater cult movie Pump Up the Volume may remember that plot twist.)

But in Iceland, the “solution” to the “problem” is much more severe.

Look, all our children are healthy because we killed the abnormal ones.

And it all seems so serene. A woman who counsels women about aborting their Down syndrome children, Helga So Olafsdottir, appears civilized and proper when she brings the reporter into the abortion ward.

“Here, we have the termination of pregnancy,” she says.

The reporter tells Olafsdottir that some may call such a termination “murder.”

“We don’t look at abortion as murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended,” Olafsdottir said.

A thing?

She continued:

“We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication … preventing suffering for the child and also for the family.”

The baby inside the womb is alive so the word “possible” is certainly deceiving.

But the bigger question is who decides a life is not worth living? Such talk normally corresponds with brutal dictatorships and terrorist groups and others … like Nazis.

But this is a civilized country. These good people are fixing a problem, even if it means ending a life. It reminds me of Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver, where a utopia is preserved by “releasing” undesirables, including the elderly.

The CBS report does attempt some balance, interviewing a Down syndrome woman in her 30s. The woman “lives a full, active life” says the reporter.

The woman is asked how she is perceived.

“They just see Downs. They don’t see me,” she said. “I want people to see that I am just like everybody else.”

In other words, she is not just a “thing” that needs to be ended. She is human being, full of dignity.

But by acknowledging the person, you must treat the person as a human, instead of refuse to be disposed of.

In France, a group put together a video to show mothers that having a Down syndrome baby is not a tragedy; that Down syndrome people are not only happy, but they bring joy to others.

The French government would not allow the video to be shown.

How can you get rid of the problem – the thing – if you must deal with a person? Just see the Downs, not the humanity.

There has been much talk in recent days about Nazis and neo-Nazis. They are not only demented in their thoughts, they make for easy headline news, especially when others clash with them.

But there is a quieter terror that is deadlier and, in the case of those with Down syndrome, the endangered human life has no voice in defense.

We nod at the civilized doctors and the progressive countries which are eradicating imperfections by ending life, for the sake of a better (master) human race.

Absolute evil.

Kevin Thomas is a writer and former teacher, living in Standish, Maine with his wife and children.